The first hurdle (for me personally) of traveling is money. The second hurdle of traveling is timing. The third hurdle of travel is picking a place. The last hurdle of traveling is packing.
Leap year traveling addresses these four hurdles.
End of February gets us *mostly* out of the way of severe winter weather. It also narrows the destination selecting process, as I live in a cold and rainy climate and am desperate for sunshine. Leap year means (obviously) it’s every four years, which is a reasonable amount of time to plan and save. Packing will always be terrible. No help there, but at least we’re confined to a long weekend.
My longtime travel buddy Kathryn and I flew into Phoenix on Thursday, February 29. The Phoenix airport is larger than I expected. We both had a ride an express train to the rental car pick-up. Phoenix advertises itself as America’s Friendliest Airport, and it lived up to that, minus one grumpy TSA agent. Every time something good happened to us in Phoenix, we joked, “America’s Friendliest Airport!”
The drive to Tucson was about two and a half hours. We got to our airbnb, freshened up, and scampered off to the original El Charro for dinner. We got there at around 5:00 pm and had to wait an hour for a table, but there is a bar out back, so we ordered drinks, watched basketball, and waited for our table. Everything on the menu felt cheaper than Portland by $2-3. After dinner we went to Tough Luck Club (great cocktail menu) and noticed how empty this part of the city felt. Apparently this is pretty normal unless there is a show at Hotel Congress.
The next morning we woke up early and stopped by Presta for coffee and pastries. Then we drove to our big adventure: horseback riding through the eastern part Saguaro National Park. Kathryn grew up doing some horseback riding and has roped me into (pun intended) joining her twice now. The ride was two hours long. It was slow and comfortable, and there was so much to take in. I barely felt the time pass. As the least experienced rider in the group, I got the most docile horse, and one of the guides rode behind me and gave me direct but helpful corrections. After our ride, we drove to the National Park gift store and I picked up a park ranger truck for Ari and an ornament for our Christmas tree because I am a mom.
We got food from a lunch cafe called The Little One. Our service was outstanding and they offer two sampler platers for their breakfast and lunch menu. It was by far my favorite meal of the trip. We drove back to our Airbnb, showered, and then drove to an outdoor mall in the foothills of the Rincon mountains. I picked out a pair cowboy boots and we ate gelato in the sunshine.
We drove back into town and tried to find a bar that had a film photobooth. No luck there, but we did get drinks and a basket of garlic knots. Too full for a proper dinner, we messaged our airbnb hosts that we’d like to use the hot tub and drove back to the house. We took turns going from the cold plunge (unheated swimming pool) to the hot tub and sent goofy pictures to our husbands.
The next morning we went to Waffle House for breakfast and had to elbow a biker gang to get our seats at the counter. I really miss Waffle House and do not understand why they’ve made it to Arizona but not to Oregon. After we paid, we headed to the Desert Museum, which is as much zoo as it is museum. The drive to the museum is stunning. I really enjoyed learning about javelinas and seeing the incredible recreations of all the desert wildflowers. We got to see a mountain lion for about 30 seconds, too. Per her request (I love specific souvenir requests!), I bought my sister a pair of turquoise earrings from the gift shop. We were there for about 2.5 hours total and could have easily spent another hour at the museum, but we wanted to get back to Phoenix before rush hour.
We went straight from the Desert Museum to the original Pizzeria Bianco location, where we had a two hour wait (no reservations!). They have a neighboring bar where we sat outside in the sunshine and counted all the spring training jerseys. We got seated a bit early and ordered both salads on the menu and a rosemary pistachio pizza. The pizza was a little on the funky side, which is normally something I’m into, but the farmers market salad was incredible (though salads always taste better when someone else makes them!). We ended up giving half the pizza to the table behind us. We had just enough time to get checked into our hotel before scooting off to the Suns-Rockets game.
The Suns arena is well-designed; I don’t think there is a bad seat in the house. We sat in front of very entertaining fans. I got to see former Blazers shine and Kevin Durant put up 30 points, but the Rockets won. Kathryn bought a cute hat, and I got KD shirt to add to my sports gear collection. We walked all the way back to our hotel because the night was just warm enough to be comfortable. The hotel is attached to a popular bar and restaurant, and other than a loud, mediocre band playing until 11:00 pm (there were earplugs on our nightstands for a reason!), I enjoyed it. Because our flights were a few hours apart, Kathryn left ahead of me, and I had some time to myself in the hotel morning. Perfect trip, no notes.
It’s worth saying that almost everyone we talked asked if we were visiting Sedona or Flagstaff, so I am already planning a future trip with Jonny and Ari! I am trying to convince Kathryn that we should do Santa Fe for our next Leap Year weekend, but if you have any suggests, I’m all ears.